


Woebegone

by ShariDeschain



Series: Batdictionary [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Family Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 10:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13479540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: Woebegone(adj) sad or miserable in appearanceOr, the one where Jason runs either into Dick Grayson turned into a Talon, or into a Talon that once used to be Dick Grayson.





	Woebegone

Moving back to the Manor had not been an easy decision for him, and there were days - but mostly nights - when the very idea of staying even one more minute in that big, silent house, was unbearable and infuriating, and every instinct in his body would start screaming for him to run, and hide, and forget about everything and everyone. Voices inside his head would remind him that he didn’t owe anybody shit, that he wasn't the one to blame for how the things had gone wrong, that this time he wasn’t the one who let the family down, that the silence in the house was not his fault.

But Jason has a trick for nights like those ( _ _nights like this one__ ).

“Hey, brat!”, he calls out to the kid perched on the couch as he enters the living room. “Let’s go out.”

Damian doesn’t even raise his gaze from his phone. He does, however, raise his middle finger at him.

“Try that again and I’ll break every bone in your hand”, Jason warns amiably and then, before Damian decides to take him up to the challenge, he approaches the boy and, with a quick movement, snatches the phone away from his hands.

“Hey!”, Damian protests, immediately trying (and failing) to grab it back. Jason raises his hand over his head, way out of Damian’s reach, and smiles down at the kid.

“Come on, put on some shoes and let’s go grocery shopping”, he prompts him. “Alfred said he needed a few things for tomorrow’s lunch.”

Damian glares at him.

“I believe that Pennyworth is more than capable of getting groceries on his own, Todd”, he answers with his best snotty tone, the one that suggests he’s already doing Jason a great favor by acknowledging his presence on this Earth.

Jason snorts.

“And good thing he is. Otherwise this family would have gone extinct for some time now.”

Damian, having clearly reached the limit of his patience with Jason’s teasing - and most likely with Jason in general - stands up on the couch armrest and reaches out his hand again to recover the stolen phone, only realizing his mistake when he sees Jason grinning like the Cheshire cat. To give credit to the kid, he only groans in defeat when Jason wraps an arm around his waist and lifts him up to throw him over his shoulder, a gesture that has now become almost a habit for both of them (although with different degrees of appreciation).

“Put me down, you big oaf!”, Damian yells as usual, struggling in Jason’s hold despite the fact that he knows it will not help him one bit. Jason only laughs, readjusts his grip on the boy, and starts walking, not paying any attention to the indignant cries and insults spitted out at him.

As per script now, little fists promptly begin to storm down on every inch of his back that the kid manages to reach, but they’re not as violent as they could be, and fists are not even the best weapon Damian could use against him in the position he’s in. There are unprotected nerves that he could reach and hit if he really wanted, and a little pressure on one of those points would damage Jason in a much more serious way than a few punches, and Damian knows it as well as Jason does, since the first times he found himself flipped over his shoulder he went directly for those.

In a way, Jason supposes that it’s kind of sweet on Damian’s part to now accept the (sometimes not so) gentle bullying as if he had finally - albeit reluctantly, and definitely not without a fight - submitted to his role of younger brother.

He still tries to kick Jason in the groin, though. The little shit.

Jason half-heartedly swats the kid’s bottom in retaliation, then he peeks his head into the kitchen.

“Hey Alf, do you have a list of things to pick up for us? We’re heading out anyway.”

“No, we’re not!”, Damian yells, still kicking his feet over Jason’s shoulder. “Pennyworth, Todd took me hostage!”

Alfred stops stirring for the time needed to cast a glance at the unlikely duo standing in the doorframe of his kitchen, then raises an eyebrow at them.

“I can write down a list for you, Master Jason”, he answers after a moment. “And Master Damian, you should know that my policy in cases of kidnapping of your person by family members is of non-intervention. Unless there is evidence of ill or deadly intentions, of course.”

Damian groans and for a moment it looks as if he has accepted the inevitable defeat, then he gives a sudden jerk and goes again for Jason’s testicles, which only earns him another swat.

“Ow! You’re a bully”, the kid growls, slumping in frustration against him.

“I'm doing my job of older brother in teaching you the injustices of the world”, Jason replies, patting him in mock comfort.

“I’m going to kill you in your sleep”, Damian declares, then he huffs and lifts himself up as much as he can, making a point of sinking his elbows into Jason's back. “Can I have my phone back at least?”

“Nope. And if you try to kick me again I’m gonna drop you on your head.”

Obviously Damian kicks him again. Obviously Jason doesn’t drop him. (But only because Alfred was watching.)

-

Supermarkets at night always have a surreal touch. Perhaps it’s because of all those bright neon lights buzzing and shining on every surfaces they find, and the crowded lanes that seem to become empty in the blink of an eye. Perhaps it’s the sound of the cart wheels that gets louder and louder as you move away from the front door, while the music in the background quietly disappears into white noise. Perhaps it's the idea of the hidden cameras in the corners of the shop spying on him, recording his every move.

Damian doesn't seem bothered by any of this, Jason notices. Although it could be because he’s again too much focussed on the phone that he’s just regained.

“Don't you have the impression of being watched?”, Jason asks, and the question takes a few seconds too long to overcome for interest the colorful game that seems to absorb all of his little brother’s attention.

Once the words sink, though, Damian stops beside him and looks up, first at Jason, then at their surroundings. He maintains a pretty believable expression of teenage boredom, but his eyes are serious and attentive now, as he considers the possible implications of Jason's remark.

It takes him all of thirty second to click his tongue at his older brother and dismiss him as a paranoid idiot.

“I mean it”, Jason insists, but Damian rolls his eyes at him and moves to grab a box of cereals from the lowest shelf.

“Is this okay?”, he asks. “Pennyworth’s note only says ‘cereals’, with no other specifications.”

Jason scratches his head and throws a few more glances all around.

“Yeah, sure”, he agrees distractedly, taking the box from the kid’s hand and throwing it into the cart. They turn the corner of another empty lane, reaching the frozen food section and the large windows facing the street outside.

The only lights out there are the familiar tall, black, and vaguely gothic - like everything else in that city - Gotham’s street lamps. All Jason can see is black asphalt, deserted sidewalks and puddles of dirty water. Nothing weird. Nothing out of place.

And yet there is this feeling in the back of his mind that makes his skin crawl. It’s been tormenting him since they stepped out of the car and he can’t shake it off. The feeling of being observed, cautiously studied by cold eyes, as if he were a prey. And not any prey either. He feels like a mouse hidden in the grass that senses the presence of an owl behind him. It’s a feeling Jason doesn’t like but one he knows.

Besides, there’s something else to it now. Something painful, something that’s mostly wishful thinking on his part, but that keeps tugging at his strings. Jason needs to know if he’s right. He needs to try, and he needs to do it alone. So he grabs Damian’s hand, pushing him forward and closer to the cashier, where a small group of people is waiting for their turn to pay.

“What are you doing?”, the boy complains, indignant.

“Here”, Jason retorts, handing the grocery list and the cart to the boy. “Pick up the milk, the eggs, and whatever junk food you think Alfred doesn’t know you keep hidden in your room, then wait for me here, okay?”

“What? No!”, Damian protests. “It was your idea to come here in the first place, you’re not going to burden me with-”

“Yes, I am”, Jason cuts him off. “It’s only gonna take five minutes, stop being a baby about it.”

An old woman in the checkout line turns around to look at them. She gives Damian an encouraging smile that succeeds in both making the boy blush and in interrupting the tantrum before it could escalate into a full fight, but also, Jason suspects, in cementing Damian's intention to kill him in his sleep. He will have to make sure to bar the door of his bedroom tonight.

“Five minutes”, Jason promises to the kid.

“I will cut you into pieces and feed your remains to Quinn's hyenas”, Damian promises back, still red in the face.

Jason pats him on the head and moves towards the exit, trying not to run.

-

Here’s a fact: owls are one of nature's best killing machines. They’re created to be so. Every detail of their body is designed to make it easier for them to hunt, to better surprise their victims and to never let them escape once they’ve been captured. Owls are ruthless killers, and yet it’s quite easy to forget this little detail about them. Nowadays when people thinks of owls, they think about Harry Potter. Not here in Gotham, though. Here in Gotham people remember the murderers more than they remember movies and books. That’s evolution for you.

Jason’s not an owl, but he’s a pretty decent hunter (and killer, when needed) too. Not that his prey is making such a great effort to hide. The footsteps over his head are careful and feather-lighted, but still very detectable in the silence of the streets. And Jason can’t be sure that it’s __him__ but at the same time he is. Because it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. And because if it __isn’t__ him, then Jason has committed a terrible mistake in leaving Damian behind.

The sound of footsteps stops just above him. Jason looks up but the darkness mixes shapes and shadows and he can't distinguish almost anything in it, except the profile of a fire escape staircase crawling up the side of a building. There could not be a clearer invitation, Jason thinks. So he grits his teeth and climbs the steps carefully, one hand over his gun, the deafening sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, waiting for an attack that he hopes will never come. (Because it’s __him__. Of course it’s __him__.)

He reaches the roof of the building undisturbed, and still finds only shadows waiting for him. But one of those shadows is familiar enough for Jason to breath a sigh that is both relief and something uncomfortably close to fear.

“Dick?”

A mask of black and gold slowly emerges from the darkness and it’s not his brother’s face, but it’s the closest thing to it that Jason has seen in months.

“Dick”, he breathes again, and the names almost sounds like a prayer on his lips.

He can see the Talon better now. The slim but solid body wrapped in black armor, the daggers lined up on his chest, the twitching blades in his hands. Jason swallows and takes a step forward.

“Hey.”

Silence. He doesn't even hear the sound of a breathe coming from him ( _ _from it?__ ). He had a conversation about this with Bruce once. __Are Talons even alive?__ , he had asked him. It had been a sterile debate, an exercise in ethics and syntax that had ended with nothing but the usual resentment. Then Dick had gone and become one of them, and there had been no more space for any moral debate.

“What happened to you?”, Jason asks now, slowly, like he were talking to a feral animal instead of his older brother. “I mean… I know what you did. Why you did it. But why not come back? Why not let us help you after-”

He stops, licks his lips. The Talon in front of him hasn’t moved one inch, there’s no way to tell if he’s even listening to his rambling. There’s no way to tell if he __is__ Dick either, and it kills Jason that as much as he wishes he could, he’s not capable of recognizing his own brother among all the Court of Owls’ soldiers.

“Do you remember when I first came back?”, Jason goes on, even though deep down he believes that his efforts are useless at this point. But he needs to at least try to connect with the creature in front of him, with what remains of his brother. And something of him __must__ have remained, otherwise why would the Talon being spying on them in the first place? “Do you remember what you told me then? That I could come home? That whatever war I was fighting, we could fight it together?”

He is paraphrasing a bit, but a little white lie is not going to hurt anybody, right? No more than they already are, at least.

“I didn’t trust you. I didn’t know if you really meant it, if it was true or not. Not back then. But you should know that it’s true now”, because Jason’s ready to make sure it is. “Come home, Dick. Bruce needs you. The kids need you. They even called a truce for you, that’s how bad it is. Tim’s going crazy trying to find you, and Damian… well.”

The Talon shifts at the mention of the names, the motion almost invisible, but Jason is too focused on him not to notice it. He has no idea on what it means, though.

“You saw Damian down there, didn’t you?”, Jason insists. “The kid is heartbroken, Dick. And he’s angry. Angrier than he was when Talia dropped him here the first time, which it says something, if I can add my two cents. And you still care about him, right? So if not for the rest of us- for the rest of them, I mean, then at least do it for him, Dick. Do it for Damian?”

It comes out like begging, and Jason hates it. But if it works then whatever. He can always deny everything later.

“Dick…”

He realizes in a quick moment that it had not been the mention of the kids’ names that had bothered the Talon, but his very own. And apparently he had just reached the limit of his patience with it.

The Talon’s speed is inhumane. Jason has barely the time to see him move, let alone try to react or to defend himself. If this was a lethal attack, then his life would’ve ended in the space of a heartbeat, with a flash of red and gold. It is almost funny, the idea of dying on an anonymous rooftop, by the hand of someone that once claimed to love him. Someone he loves. Times like this, Jason feels like he can almost understand Bruce, all the things he did and still does, the burden he drags along every step Batman takes and that sometimes threatens to pull all of them down with him.

The hand that land on his chest seems to be made of stone and steel and knocks the wind out of him. He’s pushed backwards, his back collides with one of the chimneys behind him and Jason wheezes, tries to reach out a hand to stop him, to shield himself. He manages to grab the Talon’s wrist, fingers wrapping around the rough gauntlet of his uniform, but he’s not strong enough to move it, and the Talon’s other hand is crushing him, making his vision falter and waver, black spots blooming in front of him where the Talon’s face should be. He doesn’t even know where his gun is, and even if he did, he’s not sure that he would be able to use it.

One thing he still can see - that he can only see now, from this close - is that there are eyes behind the red lens. Blue eyes. His brother’s eyes. But there’s no sign of recognition in them, no familiar spark. Dick is a Talon, and the Talon is Dick, and for some reason, until a moment ago, Jason thought those were two very different things. It’s weird to only realize it now, because he’s never been one for denial when it came to things like this. People change, he supposes.

He blacks out while watching the owl mask in front of his face moving oh so slightly, as if the Talon were trying to speak ( _ _trying to ask for help__ ), but no sound escapes Dick’s lips, and whatever the Talon is trying to tell to him, Jason doesn’t understand it.

The last thing he feels is a light brush of something cold and hard against his forehead, and then everything goes black.

-

He wakes up maybe thirty seconds, definitely less than a minute later, which is still enough time for the Talon to disappear into the night. Jason wasn't expecting anything less. He doesn’t even bother with looking around for him.

His chest hurt, and so does his back as he carefully stands up and retrieves his gun from the floor. Getting down the stairs and dragging himself back to the supermarket is no fun, and it’s even less funnier when he has to straighten himself and pretend that nothing happened for the sake of the kid standing angrily in the street with two grocery bags at his feet and another into his arms.

The old woman from the checkout line is standing next to Damian, a grocery bag of her own in her arms, and from what Jason can see she’s smiling down at Damian and talking his ear off about something that Jason can’t grasp. Her presence is probably the only reason Jason’s greeted with a glare and a laconic __“you are late”__ , instead of a punch and a colorful series of insults.

“Sorry, kiddo”, Jason concedes, then politely nods at the woman. “Thank you, Miss…”

The old woman gives him a smile that lacks in teeth but not in kindness.

“Only Ettie, dear.”

Jason smiles back at her, feeling a little surreal.

“Thank you for keeping an eye on my little brother, Ettie.”

“Oh, don’t mention it, dear”, the woman says. “Gotham is not a safe place for children to be left alone in the streets, you know? Especially at night.”

Jason’s shaken enough by the night’s events to actually feel guilty at her words.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Sorry”, he repeats.

They talk for a few more minutes. About what, Jason really can't say. He forgets the words as soon as they leave his lips, but at least he has the time to get back in control of both his body and his mental faculties, and by the time the old woman waves them goodbye he feels okay again. As okay as he's ever gonna be, at least. Damian, on his part, only grumbles under his breath for the entire time, narrowing his eyes in a glare that promises a painful revenge for every second of this torture he’s forced to endure.

“You said five minutes”, the kid remembers him through gritted teeth once Ettie is distant enough. “What were you doing? Where did you go? If you dare again to-"

“Yeah, yeah, okay”, Jason repeats. “How many times do I have to apologize to you? I just had a little setback, that's all. It’s all good now. You got everything?”

Another furious glare.

“Of course I did.”

“Good.”

Jason sighs and rubs one hand over his face. Damian takes a break from his rightful indignation to observe him with an almost worried sulk.

“Todd? Are you okay?”, the kid asks, losing the attitude for a moment.

 _ _I think I have two broken ribs__ , Jason wants to answer. He doesn’t. Partly because there’s no reason to tell Damian about tonight’s encounter, and partly because there’s that feeling again. Inhuman eyes looking down at him. Silent lips mouthing off words with no sound. A trapped bird, Jason realizes. That’s what Dick looked like.

He shivers. He knows the Talon’s back. And a part of him wants to look up, but if he does then Damian would follow his gaze and see Dick too. And that’s at least one nightmare that Jason can spare to the kid.

“Todd?”, Damian asks again.

Jason only shakes his head.

“Let’s go home.”

He leans down to pick up the grocery bags from the sidewalk and has to stop midway to not let out a moan. Yeah, definitely two broken ribs. Maybe three. Damian’s hand grips his arm and the kid tilts his head to the side, studying him.

Jason opens up his mouth to reassure him, but before he can speak the distinct sound of footsteps starts again above their heads, and Damian’s training kicks in place.

“What-”

He’s going to look up, Jason realizes. And if he sees Dick he’s going to go after him, and Jason is in no condition to follow either of them or to face the Talon again. And maybe that’s what the Talon wants. ( _ _Not what Dick wants, though__ ). So Jason does the first thing he can think of: he grabs Damian by his shirt to pull him close and, going with the momentum, he kisses him on the forehead. ( _ _Like Dick had done on the rooftop__ , he realizes. Or tried to do as far as the Talon had let him, at least.)

It’s a quick, rough gesture, and the kid’s so surprised by it (almost more surprised than Jason is), that he doesn’t even punch him in the face. He only takes one step back to stare at him with wide eyes.

“What the hell was that for?”, he sputters, rubbing an arm over his forehead as if to delete the shameful gesture.

Jason stands up carefully and not without pain, listening for the Talon to move again. But the footsteps are gone now, and Damian seems to have already forgotten them.

“Just a reminder”, he answers then, his voice as casual as he can manage, while he adjusts the bags into his arms.

But Damian’s not having any of it and stomps after him when Jason moves towards the car.

“A reminder of what?”, he insists, still more confused than angry. “Todd, are you on drugs? Is this why you left? Father won’t be happy to know that you’re also a junkie, in addition to everything else.”

In spite of everything, even his hurting ribs, Jason finds himself barking out a laugh at those words. He pops the trunk open and puts down the bags.

“I don’t do drugs and you should know that, you little shit.”

The kid comes up in front of him, arms crossed on his chest and thunderstorms in his eyes.

“Then what the hell was that?”, he repeats. “And I want an answer that makes sense this time.”

Jason pauses. He too wants answers that make sense. He wants to know if Dick is a Talon or if there’s a Talon that used to be Dick. He wants to know which one of the two he faced tonight and what was the meaning of that encounter in the first place. He wants for this shitty situation to be solved. He wants his brother back.

“ _ _That__ was a reminder of the fact that you have an older brother who loves you a lot”, he decides then, and whatever answer Damian was expecting, this was not it. To be fair, Jason wasn’t expecting it either. And he still doesn't know if he wants to believe it. “Now get in the car. You heard what your friend Ettie said: Gotham is a dangerous place at night.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- This probably needs a second part to really make sense to anybody else but eh.  
> \- Written for [this tumblr prompt](https://unavenged-robin.tumblr.com/post/170124370063/possible-angst-prompt-red-hood-finding-talondick) and for the "write a story inspired to Whispers In The Dark by Mumford&Sons" prompt of the COWT#8 @ maredichallenge.


End file.
